Always
by frozen-delight
Summary: If this is the only happily ever after they're going to get, life sucks. [Angsty schmoopy curtain!fic set in a miraculously Mark-free post-10x14 universe. Sam/Dean.]


**Title:** Always  
**Author:** frozen_delight  
**Fandom:** Supernatural  
**Pairing:** Sam/Dean  
**Rating:** Mature  
**Warnings:** Wincestuous angst.  
**Spoilers:** Up to and including 10x14 "The Executioner's Song".  
**Word count:** ~ 4000  
**Beta:** Many, many thanks to the fantastic misplaced_ad for her generous help and encouragement. All remaining mistakes are mine of course.  
**Summary:** _If this is the only happily ever after they're going to get, life sucks._  
Angsty schmoopy curtain!fic set in a miraculously Mark-free post-10x14 universe.

**A/N: **Happy birthday, dear canonisrelative! You're a marvelous, marvelous person!

* * *

**Always**

Sam never thought it would be that easy. In the end, it doesn't matter that Cain couldn't fight the Mark. That Metatron won't help them. That Cain's dead. All it takes is some dedicated research and a simple spell, and before he knows it Sam's staring down at Dean's pale, unmarked forearm and breathing a sigh of relief.

They did it.

Dean gazes up at him, looking years younger without the dark burden of Cain's curse hiding in the shadows under his eyes and the lines of his jaw, and he surges forward to kiss Sam with a blinding grin.

They've barely finished tucking themselves back in after a quick round of celebratory blowjobs when Cas arrives at the bunker in answer to their victorious texts. Beaming brighter than all the lamps in the map room put together, Dean flashes his white forearm at him.

"You look good," Cas states with a pleased, solemn air, not looking at Dean's arm, but at his face. Following the angel's gaze, Sam can see where he's coming from – Dean looks happy and healthy, his stance relaxed, his neck and hairline sprinkled with sweat, as if he'd just stepped out of an _Exercise Releases Endorphins_ advertisement in a lifestyle magazine.

"I feel good," Dean agrees. Over Cas's shoulder he throws Sam a secret smile and a wink, and Sam barely manages to refrain from bursting out laughing.

Merriment bubbling in his chest, Sam thinks involuntarily: _And this is where our new life starts_.

Too bad he had no idea _this_ would be their real challenge.

o0o

Freed from the Mark's dooming bloodthirst Sam figured they could finally have a life again. What he didn't take into the equation was that they're Winchesters, and they're really not very good at having anything.

The first couple of weeks are great. For once there's no deadline to their actions, so they work whatever cases they can find and enjoy life in the interim; they clean their guns, roam the Men of Letters' archives, hustle pool, bicker over Dean's taste in music, comb ghoul entrails out of each other's hair and fuck on practically every surface in the bunker, all with the same level of devotion.

Then, of course, there are irritations. Neither of them has much experience with long-term relationships, and they both know exactly how to get under each other's skin. Plus there's the minor snag that they have enough issues between them to fill up the Grand Canyon.

At first it's the little things, such as Sam trying to initiate a make-out session in Dean's freshly cleaned kitchen, or Dean leaving his dirty socks lying around Sam's room; nothing that can't be resolved with mind-blowing make-up sex.

But soon enough their fights get bigger and nastier. There's the time when Sam throws himself in front of Dean during their fight with a particularly vicious ghost in an abandoned factory – completely logical if you ask Sam, since he was the only one who still had a weapon at this point; reckless and stupid if you ask Dean. They take to sleeping in separate rooms again, and it's only after three days that Dean finally gets over it and starts addressing more than two words to his brother.

Eventually, Sam can't help but acknowledge they have a problem. However, before he can even begin to ponder how he's going to bring this up, Dean comes to him, wearing the horribly defeated expression that makes an appearance whenever he thinks he's failed Sam, be it because he couldn't buy his little brother the action hero figure he wanted, or because he just watched him die.

"Sam…" Tenderly Dean cups his face, his thumbs caressing Sam's cheekbones. His words come out as a hoarse whisper. "We're… it's not working."

Taken aback, Sam blinks at his brother. Up till now Dean became antsy every time Sam so much as thought the word _relationship_, and now he's actually instigating a conversation about it. And not just any conversation – the _We should just be friends_ talk. As ridiculous as it sounds, Dean's … _breaking up_ with him.

"You're my brother," Dean continues, since Sam's too surprised to say anything. His face is gentle and full of love. "That's more important than anything else."

"You're right. Yes," Sam agrees, just a beat too late.

o0o

The first two days after they decide to go back to just being brothers are rather awkward, but they quickly fall into their old patterns, which aren't all that different anyway. They hunt and they bicker the way they always did. There's just a little less touching, and no sex.

And it makes sense, Sam muses idly. Sleeping with each other was something they started when they were scared that Dean was losing his fight to the Mark. They clung to each other in a frenzy of curses, limbs and bodily fluids, all in the desperate hope that would somehow change their destiny. Now, with the Mark gone, there's no need anymore for that sort of comfort and affirmation.

Except sometimes Sam forgets.

After a successful hunt when he wraps himself around Dean and presses his face into Dean's neck in an excess of adrenaline and feeling. Seemingly unfazed, Dean gives him an all too comradely pat on the head and disentangles himself with a joke.

Or when he's a little tipsy and kisses his brother on the tip of his nose because he's happy and Dean's right there and his beer-addled brain can't think of any reason not to. In answer Dean wipes a hand across his face with a mock-disgusted expression, as if this were some random prank Sam's played on him. "God, you're gross!" he whines and steals Sam's beer.

Or when it's night and his bed feels too big, his mattress too hard and his feet too cold, and he can't fall asleep; and he realizes belatedly that he misses sleeping in Dean's room, with his brother's warm limbs wrapped lazily around him.

o0o

It's only a couple of weeks later, on a perfectly ordinary morning, that Sam finally has an epiphany. It happens when Dean hands him a steaming cup of coffee. Dean isn't even looking at him. He's checking out something in one of the Men of Letters' countless files. Still, their fingers brush against the china and Sam's heart begins to flutter in his chest like an overexcited bullfinch in spring.

In a clownish attempt to stop his traitorous fingers from curling around Dean's, Sam almost drops the cup. It's like his fingers have suddenly developed a mind of their own, and touching Dean is their only focus; it's all Sam can do not to let them act out on their wild fancy.

Dean removes his files out of harm's way and laughs at his clumsiness, while Sam, blushing deep scarlet, stares at him over the rim of his coffee and wonders why it never occurred to him before that he's violently in love with his big brother.

o0o

Sam's grown up in a world of weirdness, but being in love with his brother is still the weirdest thing that's ever happened to him.

When they embarked on a more than brotherly relationship, there was no time for butterflies in the belly. Besides, what was the point? They'd known each other all their lives.

Yet now some puerile part of Sam's hormonal system has decided to make up for that lost opportunity with a vengeance. He can't seem to be able to look at Dean without blushing, and, what's worse, he can't seem to be able to stop looking at Dean, full stop. Because it's only really dawned on him now just how gorgeous Dean is.

Now that he can't have him anymore.

He looks at Dean, with his perfect smiles and eyebrows and freckles, and forgets why they ever agreed to stop.

o0o

Instead, Sam remembers.

How Dean gasped and his mouth twisted with wanton abandon when he spilled over Sam's hand.

How the beads of sweat on his shoulders tasted.

How he pulsed in Sam's mouth or tightened around Sam's cock before his orgasm shook through him.

How his lips and hands traced every inch of Sam's body with near-religious devotion.

How his toe rubbed circles over Sam's ankle, feather-light, tantalizingly so, no more than a whisper of a touch, and it drove Sam to distraction, the little motion almost enough to make him come.

How he bit down on the inside of Sam's thigh with an impish grin, and softened the sting with a wet kiss.

How he held Sam at night and ran his fingers through Sam's hair, over and over, as though it was his favorite pastime in the world.

Sam looks at Dean now, and remembers, and wants.

o0o

It's not like everything was perfect before, Sam still knows that, even when one of Dean's million watt smiles reduces his brain and knees to jelly.

The first time they kissed they were both crying. Every breath that shook Dean's shoulders was a warning plea, _Beware, beware_, while Sam licked and caressed the words _You won't hurt me_ into Dean's skin and tasted salty tears. Shame blossomed on Dean's cheeks afterwards, and his voice was throaty. "What are we doing here, Sammy?"

"Screwing destiny right in the face," Sam replied with more conviction than he felt, leaving a trail of butterfly-light pecks across his brother's abdomen; and he relished the feel of Dean's muscles contracting with laughter at his innuendo.

In hindsight, Sam thinks that maybe he got it all wrong. Seems more like destiny was screwing them.

o0o

Sam's fully aware that it's ridiculous to assume that simply because Dean's no longer sleeping with Sam, he should go without for the rest of his life. He knows his brother, and Dean really wasn't made for celibacy.

But it hurts.

Sam's been stabbed, tortured, killed; he'd say his pain tolerance is uncommonly high. And yet he can't handle a broken heart.

At least when Jess died, he could focus on avenging her death, and the thirst for revenge dulled the horrible ache in his chest and made it bearable. This time, there's no one to take revenge on, nothing to make it better; unless Sam wants to tie Dean up at the bunker and spank him and throttle every woman on the right side of sixty within a fifty-mile radius.

Clearly, Dean realizes that witnessing his extracurricular activities must be upsetting for Sam, so he's trying to be subtle; but Sam's known Dean all his life and can read all his tells. He doesn't need to see Dean pick someone up at a bar to know that Dean's been hooking up.

When Dean comes home from his latest burger run, the easy cadence of his hips and the loose set of his shoulders tell Sam all he needs to know. It doesn't matter that Dean hasn't been out any longer than he normally would on a supply run and that Sam's burger is still hot – he has first-hand experience that Dean can do a lot in five minutes after all.

He tries to shoo away the ugly pictures of exactly what Dean's been up to that rise up in his mind like a pesky flock of magpies. Then however he takes the first bite of his burger, and it all becomes too much.

"I told you I don't want onions!" he bursts out and chucks the offensive burger back down on his plate.

Dean freezes with his own burger midway to his open mouth. In any other situation the effect would be comical.

"I told her to give me all your onions," he says defensively.

"Well, clearly she was too busy flirting with you to pay attention," Sam snaps back.

Dean flinches like he's been slapped. "Sam. I'm sorry." His guilt is palpable in every syllable, and Sam suddenly feels like a huge bastard.

He pushes his burger at Dean and gets up from the table. "You have it. I'm not really hungry anymore."

Dean stares after him as he leaves the room, looking every bit as close to tears as Sam feels.

o0o

Walking past Dean's room to his own, Sam can hear muffled voices coming through the door. One is frustrated and gravelly – Dean's. The other a placid growl – Cas, undoubtedly. He can't make out the words, but the thought that Dean is in there, upset enough that he needs to talk to someone, and that said someone can't be Sam because Sam's the one who upset him, is thoroughly depressing. He slinks off to his room with the dread that he's once again failed his brother weighing on his shoulders and stomach.

_You're my brother. That's more important than anything_, Dean had told him. But Sam's let him down, again. Sam's forgotten how to be his brother.

Naturally Dean's noticed. These days he's careful around Sam, almost shy, no longer teasing him at every opportunity, always keeping on his toes as if he's afraid of treading wrong. As if he's waiting. Which isn't completely baffling, considering how Sam's usually the one who puts them back together after a fight, the one who steps up and mends their broken bond with a heartfelt _Because you're still my big brother_. But Sam has no idea how to do that this time.

What makes it worse, he feels like they're running out of time. Again. Even with no Apocalypse or Mark of Cain looming on the horizon.

Dean's taken to giving him these sad, soft smiles that make Sam's blood run cold with fear and anticipated loss. The last time they flitted over Dean's face, he was trying to accustom Sam to the thought that he was going to Hell, and Sam could do nothing to stop it.

It's disgraceful to think that when not even furious hellhounds could claw apart their brotherly bond, the fall-out of their heedless flirt with thoroughly unbrotherly feelings has now practically reduced them to strangers. The last time they were so distant, Dean ended up with a murderous scar on his forearm and the King of Hell as new best friend. Sam really doesn't want to think about that again.

Not five minutes after Sam sunk down on his bed and buried his head in his pillow, there's a knock on his door. A moment later Cas steps inside with a thoughtful frown.

They make small-talk about Heaven and his new wings until Cas finally says, "Dean prayed to me."

Sam lifts up a hand. "Don't… that's private."

"I understand the concept of privacy," Cas assures him calmly, although Sam has his doubts. "But Dean is worried about you." He places his hand on Sam's shoulder and peers into his face. "So am I. You're not happy."

Sam laughs at Cas's bluntness. "I just… I need some time."

Cas purses his lips and nods with a puzzled line between his brows, as though he's unsure what Sam's telling him. "Time to be happy," he mutters gravely to himself, as if he's making a footnote to his dissertation on The Complex Workings of Sam Winchester's Mind.

_Time to relearn how to be Dean's brother_, Sam thinks, and sighs.

o0o

He tries.

They work a classic salt and burn in Hudson, Wyoming.

The case is every bit as obvious and boring as it seemed on paper, nothing any other hunter in the area couldn't have handled too. But Dean needs to get back on the road, because that's what Dean does when he's stressed and out of his depth, drive for hundreds of miles; and who is Sam to begrudge him for it, when he's the reason Dean's feeling like that in the first place?

Dean does offer to take care of the case on his own, but Sam will hear none of it, because he doesn't want to let Dean out of his sight. Truth is, Sam's terrified that he'll run again. He doesn't want to. But he's still afraid that one day in the not too distant future, given the chance, he will, because he always does.

So he sticks by Dean's side and goes through the motions of digging up the coffin and lighting up the remains inside with moody perseverance, gritting his teeth against the stench of putrefaction, the raw clasp of smoke and the sweet torture right beside him.

It's drizzling and Dean's shirt clings wetly to his back; and staring at him Sam thinks that if this is the only happily ever after they're going to get, life sucks.

o0o

On the drive back they make a pit stop at a random gas-n-sip. Dean tends to the needs of his beloved car, while Sam goes to hit the head and get them some coffee.

Someone has scrawled _After all this time?_ on the inside of the toilet stall, and another person's handwriting replied _Always. _Sam stares at the writing and has to bite his lips together to keep himself from crying.

He burns his tongue on his coffee, and almost sloshes Dean's when he hands it to him.

It's only twenty miles down the highway that Sam realizes he forgot the Skittles Dean asked him for, and with a keen longing he thinks of the days when Dean would have bitched at him for hours. Now Dean's frowning quietly at the road ahead, his hands twitching on the steering wheel, and Sam can do nothing but press his face against the cool passenger window and feel sorry. For himself. For both of them. For everything.

o0o

At night they check into a seedy motel, and the gaudy orange tapestry makes Sam feel nauseous. Dizzily, he sinks down on one of the beds and buries his face in his hands, breathing in deeply and pretending hard that he doesn't feel like a couple of vultures are having a party with his entrails.

Dean sits down across from him on the other bed and nudges his foot. "You want to watch a movie? I'll get us some grub and beer and because I'm an awesome big brother I'll even let you pick."

The memory of dozens of movie nights spent in crappy motel rooms resurfaces in Sam's mind – pressed next to each other on a bed, usually Sam's, so that Dean could leave crumbs of chips and pizza all over it; sneakily throwing gummy bears and popcorn at each other; and more often than not ending up in a dirty tickling match, a chaotic whirl of limbs and laughter.

Sam can't see the night ending without an attempt to grope his brother and kiss him senseless, so he rubs his hands over his face and then lets them drop away to his knees, shaking his head at Dean. "Sorry, man. I'm tired."

Dean's face falls so fast Sam's ankles itch to leap forward so he can catch it before it hits the ground.

"Okay." He gives Sam another one of those sad, soft smiles he's grown to hate.

"You could go out," Sam suggests over the sickening lurch of his stomach.

"Nah," Dean says. "Don't feel like it." There's a naked, pleading look in his eyes. "Can I borrow your laptop? I'll be quiet."

Dean frequently borrows Sam's laptop, and if he's not lucky, Sam's greeted by a dozen lurid Busty Asian Beauties ads the next time he opens his browser. But Dean's never asked before and it sets Sam's teeth on edge.

"Sure," he grits out, balling his hands into fists to keep himself from tossing his laptop straight at Dean's head.

The rest of the evening is awkward as hell, and neither of them sleeps much that night.

o0o

In a misguided attempt at making things better, Dean starts throwing girls at him during the next couple of weeks. It's not exactly inconspicuous and thoroughly irritating. Dean's good, he knows Sam's taste in girls, petite, brunette, smart, but he doesn't seem to realize that Sam's developed a new type – green eyes, freckles, broad shoulders and bowlegs.

It's mostly the sight of Dean biting his lip unhappily each time Sam turns down one of the girls that eventually prompts him to accept. A grin flashes over his brother's face as he leans back in the booth, nursing his beer, and the prospect of having Dean sit there, waiting for him, makes Sam feel slightly better about the whole thing. He feels Dean's eyes on him as he slides out of the booth and the thought that Dean will be able to tell whatever he's been up to once he comes back sends a thrill of excitement down his spine.

He downs two more shots at the bar before following his hook-up into the bathroom, where he presses her against the sink, raining greedy kisses over her bare throat and shoulders as he pushes up her dress.

"Sam," she sighs, digging her nails into his back. "God."

He doesn't say anything, just breathes hard, because he's already forgotten her name.

She's hot and affectionate, and it's been way too long since he's held a warm body in his arms and watched it shake apart under his tongue and fingers. She clenches around him when he massages her wet clit, and he's just starting to get into it when she moans, "Yes, Sammy, just like that." and his hard-on simply dies on him.

And then he runs.

"Sammy!"

He keeps running.

"Sammy, for God's sake –"

When Dean finally catches up with him, Sam breaks into tears and buries his head in Dean's shoulder. He must be even drunker than he thought.

"Hey. It's okay. You're okay. Sammy, hey," Dean babbles gently, stroking his back, and Sam just shakes his head while the tears keep spilling over his face, soaking Dean's shirt, because everything's so far from okay. But Dean keeps telling him that it is; and because Sam is drunk and sad and Dean smells like home and comfort and safety and all things good, he stays put, clinging to his big brother, hoping that he's right.

"Stay," he mumbles later when Dean puts him to bed.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean says again, brushing his hair out of his face and tucking him in. But he doesn't leave.

o0o

Sam wakes up sprawled across his brother's sleeping form sporting a hard-on and a huge headache. Before he has time to get out of bed and pretend that last night never happened, Dean stirs beneath him and turns, opening sleepy green eyes up at him. He's beautiful, and Sam has no idea how he's supposed to deal with the fact that he won't get to see him like this every morning for the rest of his life.

"Morning, princess," Dean grunts out, his voice still rough from sleep. There are merry crinkles around the corners of his eyes, and he doesn't look freaked.

"I'm sorry," Sam mumbles.

Dean frowns a little, which complements the pillow creases on his cheek all too adorably. "I told you, Sammy, it's okay."

"No, it's not!" Sam bursts out, breaking the Number One Winchester Rule of pretending that everything's fine and not talking about it, because his splitting headache is making him cranky, and because Dean's face is about five inches away from his and Sam really, really wants to kiss him. "It's not okay! I'm hopelessly in love with you and I'll never get over you and this is really not working –"

"Hey, Sam, hey, it's okay," Dean calms him, rubbing a hand across his cheek just like he did the night before. Unlike the previous night, he then presses a quick kiss to Sam's lips. His breath is sour, stale with smoke and beer, and it ought to be disgusting, but it still tastes like heaven to Sam.

Sam presses a finger to his lips and looks questioningly at his brother. "Does this mean –?"

Dean smiles, and for once it's not one of the sad, soft variety, thank God. "Yes."

It's everything Sam wants to hear, and he really should be thrilled, but of course now's the point where he's suddenly having second thoughts. They're really not very good at this. "You sure? Didn't work out so well the last time."

"We'll figure it out, okay?" Dean tells him with easy confidence, threading their hands together. "Just like we always do."

Sam's heard these words countless times from Dean's lips, and in spite of everything demons, angels, humans, monsters and destiny threw their way, he always believed in them.

He does this time too.

* * *

Thank you for reading. Feedback is love.


End file.
